What a sighting!

Today, Ron Henry, Alisa, and Brady came up to get their Christmas tree. Brady was quite tired so he went down for a nap, and it ended up that only Ron Henry and I went out to hunt for their tree. I had scoped out some options along a new powerline cut that runs through the forest toward the highway. As we wandered closer to the road, motion caught my eye about 30 feet away. In the thick trees, I couldn't tell much except that it was too short to be a deer, so I thought it was a coyote. As Ron Henry turned to see what I was pointing at, the critter turned to look at us - it was a mountain lion! It sat and watched us for a little while but when we moved, it slinked away. It was quite exciting at first, but then every little sound creeped us out! I totally forgot to take any pictures of it or the tree we then cut. It took awhile for the adrenaline to calm down! When we got to the gully below the highway, there was a roadkill elk and a deer carcass that must have been what drew the lion. At least we knew he wasn't hungry! We've lived in this house for 14 years and have never seen a lion before - YIKES!